You want to know the difference?

The major difference has always been the WORK miniatures gamers put in, compared to x wing gamers or armada gamers or whathaveyou, work which is REQIURED if you are going to play "competitively" (no unpainted figures allowed.)

You take six months, a year collecting an army, converting an army, painting up an army, basing it, making a display board... you aren't ditching it or reworking it completely days before a tourney when someone figures out a cool card combo.

The connection between player and army is much more intimate and long termed in traditional wargaming. That's the big difference, in terms of not seeing as "total" a meta in traditional wargaming.

4 hours ago, Andreu said:

I truly hope they do better than X-Wing and that new waves only bring variety and not "must haves" people will buy anyway if is cool and Star wars...

Well the scope of the game will help with that.

Part of the issue with xwing is the format is so small you cant take even a third of the options available, so by default something will get left in the dirt even if powercreep wasnt a thing.
Most miniwargames you take several units, even the skirmish ones. Xwing you take max 4 ships unless youre doing a bareboned thing.

Swapping one of your frontliners out for a special task force isnt as punishing when you have 8-12 units vs taking that support ship in xwing and losing a heavy hitter as a result.

The thing I hate the most about X-Wing, is the way they choose to buff old ships. They make new special upgrade cards just for the weak ship with zero or negative point costs and put it in a repainted box of this ship. I still hope, if sometimes a buff is needed for Legion, they just ruled by the FAQ/Errata. I'm not sure, but maybe Alex Davy was the man behind this buffs.

Unfortunately I. Doubt any balance adjustments will be done via errata or onlin updates. I suspect they will stay stuck to their card only system.

IMO the poor ability to fine tune balance is the main problem with FFGs card system....it takes too long for a fix, and if the fix doesn't do the job you're basically screwed. With online errata you can just fix issues as they arise...GW is actually demonstrating this well right now (words I never thought I'd say!).

Hopefully if FFG is going for the WArhammer market, they realise that wargamers mostly expect prompt and ongoing balance tweaks and errata, not just "a card might happen eventually".

I played a fair share of Warmachine/Hordes back in the day which is a traditional miniature tabletop game but skewed heavily towards competitive play. Huge meta changes after new releases were common due to the combo'y nature of the game. Spamming units after release was also common - despite the work and money needed to put in. You wouldn't stand a chance in a tournament if you didn't come prepared for the newest killer combo. The double list format mitigated the list chicken problem a bit but meant even more effor to put into your army. Still the competetive players always were ready with the newest hotness.

7 minutes ago, Kirin said:

I played a fair share of Warmachine/Hordes back in the day which is a traditional miniature tabletop game but skewed heavily towards competitive play. Huge meta changes after new releases were common due to the combo'y nature of the game. Spamming units after release was also common - despite the work and money needed to put in. You wouldn't stand a chance in a tournament if you didn't come prepared for the newest killer combo. The double list format mitigated the list chicken problem a bit but meant even more effor to put into your army. Still the competetive players always were ready with the newest hotness.

Not saying you're wrong, but in Chicago we never saw many people going to the new hotness. It was always Haley2, gaspy2, and occasionally other things. When meta wrecking units like collossals or gargantuans came out, the factions that had good ones (re: not Trolls) used them, but end of the day in your standard tournament it was the same every time, lists and Jack's and all. That and the multiple rules issues many of us had with the game led to it effectively dying in Chicago.

I've been much happier with the new waves in Armada, where FFG HAS learned how to make new stuff that doesn't replace the old. Hopefully Legion is similar.

10 hours ago, Lord Ashram said:

which is REQIURED if you are going to play "competitively" (no unpainted figures allowed.)

They've said unpainted figures will be tournament legal in Legion.

9 hours ago, The Bishop said:

I still hope, if sometimes a buff is needed for Legion, they just ruled by the FAQ/Errata. I'm not sure, but maybe Alex Davy was the man behind this buffs.

Alex was lead designer on Armada, wasn't he? Armada hasn't had anything in the way of zero or negative cost upgrades, but has had one major errata that changed the text on a handful of problematic upgrades. That's probably largely due to a combination of lessons learned from X-Wing, and the basic game design of Armada; which Legion seems to be somewhat similar to.

1 hour ago, geek19 said:

I've been much happier with the new waves in Armada, where FFG HAS learned how to make new stuff that doesn't replace the old. Hopefully Legion is similar.

Too bad the errata/FAQ cycle is always a few months behind where it should be. If they were more proactive with balancing the game, it would be much better.

15 hours ago, Robin Graves said:

It's true! Heh. Imagine coming home with 6 Storm Ravens and finding out your list is now illegal. Still, if you do nothing but spam broken stuff you get what's comming to you.

Broken stuff? All those exciting tourneys with 90% bringing identical lists...

12 hours ago, Lord Ashram said:

You want to know the difference?

The major difference has always been the WORK miniatures gamers put in, compared to x wing gamers or armada gamers or whathaveyou, work which is REQIURED if you are going to play "competitively" (no unpainted figures allowed.)

You take six months, a year collecting an army, converting an army, painting up an army, basing it, making a display board... you aren't ditching it or reworking it completely days before a tourney when someone figures out a cool card combo.

The connection between player and army is much more intimate and long termed in traditional wargaming. That's the big difference, in terms of not seeing as "total" a meta in traditional wargaming.

Exactly!

Also, the competitive scene isn't what drives traditional miniature wargames such as Flames of War, Bolt Action, AoS, and dare I say even 40k. Sure 40k can have some highly competitive matches but I'd argue that a lot of the consumers of Warhammer 40k are not driven by the ultra competitive aspect that dominates games like X-wing and Armada and most CCGs/LCGs in the card game world. Most 40k or AoS games played at my FLGS are friendly competitions between a group of regulars who enjoy the hobby. X-wing on the other hand gets pretty cut-throat and can have participants that drive from outside the area to "compete". There are a lot of people who buy and collect 40k and AoS armies purely for artistic and modelling reasons that don't even play the game. Let's not confuse the term "competition" that exists when two player square off during a game with competition and the desire to compete that is driven by local organized tournaments and "national or world" championships that fuels sales of a lot of FFG product lines. The later induces the "must keep up with the Jones" chasing the meta competitive mentality that exists in X-wing and CCG/LLGs. Like I initially inquired, it will be interesting to see how FFG and the community treats Legion.....as a competitive driven game or a more "hobby" driven game such as the typical miniature wargames out there which FFG is trying to tap into the market of.

30 minutes ago, DesignXception said:

Like I initially inquired, it will be interesting to see how FFG and the community treats Legion.....as a competitive driven game or a more "hobby" driven game such as the typical miniature wargames out there which FFG is trying to tap into the market of.

My guess is that FFG will drive it to be heavily competitive. If you push store tournaments, regional/national/worlds as hard as they do, it keeps the game relevant and drives sales for people to match the meta. Some of the community will follow this but this will attract more hobbyist gamers at the same time. I plan to build and paint my minis but after years of playing other competitive games, I have a general distaste for it. I may play locally but the thought of doing a nationals type venue with the types of players those generally attract.... No thank you.

1 hour ago, DesignXception said:

X -wing on the other hand gets pretty cut-throat and can have participants that drive from outside the area to "compete". There are a lot of people who buy and collect 40k and AoS armies purely for artistic and modelling reasons that don't even play the game.

Is traveling to compete a negative game descriptor in your book? In my town, if the game is not 40k or XWing, a tourney of it usually can't attract more than 2-4 locals. If I want to play my army against something other than the one army I've played against a million times, I have to travel for Infinity or Warmahordes or even AoS. I will be friendly and try to have a good time and generally lose these games pretty handily as I have no experience against the other armies.

Also, I have a color disorder where I can't see colors very well, and have had to deal with minis players telling me playing unpainted is wrong since I was 11.

I don't think there's a wrong way to play, whether it includes traveling out of town to stores or playing unpainted or on terrain that's only felt. I hate hearing what's traditional because it feels unnecessarily elitist.

59 minutes ago, VictoryLeo said:

. I may play locally but the thought of doing a nationals type venue with the types of players those generally attract.... No thank you.

I've been to worlds for X-wing twice and its a fantastic experience. In person that, community is very respectful and helpful. The internet is well...the internet.

1 hour ago, profparm said:

Is traveling to compete a negative game descriptor in your book? In my town, if the game is not 40k or XWing, a tourney of it usually can't attract more than 2-4 locals. If I want to play my army against something other than the one army I've played against a million times, I have to travel for Infinity or Warmahordes or even AoS. I will be friendly and try to have a good time and generally lose these games pretty handily as I have no experience against the other armies.

Also, I have a color disorder where I can't see colors very well, and have had to deal with minis players telling me playing unpainted is wrong since I was 11.

I don't think there's a wrong way to play, whether it includes traveling out of town to stores or playing unpainted or on terrain that's only felt. I hate hearing what's traditional because it feels unnecessarily elitist.

No not at all. Traveling to compete is not a negative. I'm not claiming either type of miniature game (X-wing vs. 40k vs. Armada vs. Legion) is better or worse then the other. I'm just highlighting the community differences between traditional miniature wargames (FoW, 40k, Bolt Action) vs more competitive meta driven games such as X-wing or Armada.

1 hour ago, NervousSam said:

I've been to worlds for X-wing twice and its a fantastic experience. In person that, community is very respectful and helpful. The internet is well...the internet.

Are there wonderful people who play competitively and are awesome, genuine people? Of course! There's also hyper-competitive a-holes who are miserable to play against. I played in a small X-Wing fun tournament last year at GenCon (maybe 20-ish people) and there was some great players I flew against. One rolled up with a super meta squad rocking all his regional/store championship tokens and templates. Not only did he seem like he was playing someone beneath him the whole time, he also kept telling me how to play. There's a major difference between helpful advice and snotty criticism. Saw the same thing when I played L5R competitively back in the day.

I don't get why people feel traditional (assemble&paint) miniature games are any less competitive than ready to play games like X-Wing or Armada.

Not sure about US, but at least in Europe there's a pretty huge completely fan driven tournament structure built around traditional games like 40k and FoW (European Team Championship and associated qualifying structures that most countries run).